WD Vault

I Can’t Keep Up With the Super-Nutrition Moms

I am one of the no-sugar types of moms and yet I still feel guilty b/c many of the Waldorf school moms I know have gone 10 steps further to do a G.A.P.S diet which is basically no grains, no sugar, mainly local organic and lots of fermented foods. It seems that with so many issues of parenting, your best is NEVER good enough! Help! –r

Despite having written a book with the word “Oreo” in the subtitle, and therefore obviously being a pro-sugar, pro-grain kind of mom, I do also believe in good nutrition. (So, nowhere in the book, which happens to be about laid-back parenting, do I recommend an entire sleeve of cookies in a single serving.) What’s more, the more I learn about additives and chemicals. the less cavalier I am about the specific kinds of foods I want my kids to eat. (I couldn’t put down former FDA commissioner David Kessler’s new book The End of Overeating).

However. (Always a big “however.”) Competitive feeding we can certainly do without! I suspect you’re not so rankled by these fellow moms’ dietary choices as by their loud self-righteousness about it, or maybe by a bit of insecurity over whether to keep up with their zeal. Excessive zeal, I should say. For the preschool set, Gap should be stuff you wear, not eat.

Here’s what you do: Feed your own child whatever you think is right and ignore everybody else. For your kids’ health sake, you ought to educate yourself and make informed choices. But “choice” is the operative word. If you pick up a good tip on a flourless and sugarless cookie from the food-police mamas, fine. But if you still want to buy the nonorganic packaged kind, one or two a day isn’t going to harm your child. Don’t think you need to feed your family the way anybody else does, however intense the peer pressure.

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